Even the most popular, loved, and revered sites on the Web need to evolve and change. Otherwise the next big thing will emerge to take its place. Which is why YouTube is currently embarking on a sizable redesign, with new features emerging every week.
YouTube Redesign
YouTube began testing its new redesign as part of TestTube, YouTube’s ideas incubator, last December. And while not all of the features and changes of Feather made it through to the final redesign, most have.
The redesign proper began in January, with all extraneous and unnecessary elements removed in favor of a more minimalist look and feel. Those first changes of a month ago were mostly aesthetic, but the newly-unveiled changes are a little more nuts-and-bolts.
Playlists Galore
Playlists have been given a makeover, with a new interface making the whole idea more seamless and a more integral part of YouTube as a whole.
There is, thankfully, an option to turn AutoPlay on or off, but the default is to have one video queued up and ready to play as soon as the one you’ve chosen to watch ends. This could increase the number of videos each user watches on YouTube considerably.
Video Queuing
The queuing of videos is now possible within search results. So when you search for a topic from the video page, you’ll now be able to select the video which will follow the one currently playing.
This should mesh well with the new playlist options to keep people on the site and watching videos for longer periods. But it’s a feature which has been on most Web-based music players for a long time, so Google is really just catching up.
Integrated Video Comments
Lastly, the comments section will now include text and video responses as standard. The text comments on YouTube are where arguments and insults occur on a daily basis, although that does mean they’re never dull.
The inclusion of video comments as an integrated feature should break up the conversation in a good way.
Conclusions
The YouTube redesign is still very much a work in progress, and I’m sure some features will prove more popular than others. All in all though, they’re so far improving YouTube in a big way. And I hope there is a lot more to come.
